#OWS

Quotes

"People, governments and economies of all nations must serve the needs of multinational banks and corporations." Zbigniew Brzezinski.

"We are going to have a war on terror which you can never win, and so you can always keep taking people's liberties away. The media is going to convince everybody that the war on terror is real. The ultimate goal is to get everybody in the world chipped with an RFID chip, and have all money be on the chips, and if anyone wants to protest what we do, we turn off the chip."

Nicholas Rockefeller to producer Aaron Russo - eleven months before the 9/11 World Trade Center attacks, taken from here

Investigation into trustworthy sources

We can’t know it all, we need trusted sources and advice. This is an investigation into how we can determine such trustworthies.

We live in a world in which disinformation is a significant mechanism for controlling people. They are intentionally trying to confuse us. But to understand this intended confusion we need to decide “Who are they?” That is the first question we should be asking, who are the they who are trying to confuse us?

Let’s take that question a step further, and also ask “what is their purpose?”.

In this blogpost I want to avoid taking a political position but it is extremely difficult to discuss “they and power” without being honest about your position. I am a radical leftie. In my terms I consider myself a genuine Marxist who recognises that the “1%” control in order to make their profits, and in order to facilitate their profits they have two main strategies – making war for profits and exploiting the workforce by wage-slavery. If you detect a bias that is overly Marxist, perhaps you should ignore this advice, but the main point of this blogpost is to say “find appropriate advice, find trusted sources”.

So from my biased neutral, hopefully detached, position, I want to ask “who are they and what is their purpose?”. I have already given the answer to that in my “unbiased position”. They are the 1%. Whether you use the term 1%, elite, bourgeoisie, superrich etc., these people are THEY. Across the political spectrum recognising THEY as the 1% is not problematic, if it is stop reading this – there is nothing for you to gain from reading this.

Putting aside the question as to “what is their purpose?” for a moment, I want to ask “who are not THEY?”. Let us start with government and politicians, are they part of the 1%? In terms of the finances they own, the answer is usually NO. By their nature a politician wishes to be in charge in other words their ego usually drives them, it is not moral integrity that drives them to be politicians – there are exceptions. Without moral integrity these politicians are readily open to corruption to stay in power. It is therefore common sense not to trust what politicians say. I disagree with Trump’s politics (see my bias) but primarily I disagree with his position, and any politician’s position, that says “trust me”. Almost by definition a politician cannot be trusted because they are driven by ego for power. Examine all politicians to determine what their policies are and whether they have intentions to apply those policies, “trust me” is not a platform for the mature voter.

It is also important to examine the relationship between politicians and government. Are politicians in charge? This is a significant question to ask especially for westerners who believe they are in democracies. When you vote for a politician, are you voting for a leader? Or are you voting for a PR figurehead? Look at Trump’s Muslim ban, he has not been able to implement it. Has he built the wall? Has he drained the swamp? There are some policies he has had no problem with, such as bombing Syria and Afghanistan. There is a very interesting novel/British TV mini-series, A Very British Coup, which examines the power of a voted-in prime minister when he wants to go against the establishment. And who does this establishment represent? The 1%.

What about the Deep State? Are they in charge? Certainly it is clear that whatever the Deep State is they are not subject to democratic approval. It could be argued that the Deep State does what it wants whoever has been voted in.

Who controls the Deep State? Here I can only guess because without being privy to their control and conduct what more can I do. I would argue that they are primarily controlled by the 1%. The 1% are prime motivators behind the Deep State because war is one of their main sources of profit. The Deep State is connected with National Security as it appears that their actions support the nation’s interests over another nation. Nations fight wars but there could also be a governmental aspect to this Deep State – I don’t mean party political government. In the UK the MI5 might be considered Deep State, they might also be considered part of the Civil Service, but they are not accountable to the electorate. In the US the Deep State might well be considered part of the Pentagon as well as perhaps represented in the White House. Because of the importance of war for profits to the 1% the interests of the 1% and the Deep State might well be the same. I think it would be fair to say that the 1% and the Deep State are not in conflict.

Given the provisos in the investigation so far, I am going to say “they are the 1%”. What is their purpose? Increased accumulation and profits. I have discussed one way they make profits – war. The other way is through accumulation of capital. Primarily this is carried out through the banking and finance sector. But the basis of these sectors is profits gained from production. In production there are competing interests for the profits. There is the capital interest that pays for the plant, and the interest of labour who make the products. Who gets the profits when these products are sold? There is a balance between the plant-owners (the capital investors) and the workers as to who gets the profits. At the same time there are echelons of management who facilitate trade, they also want to get money from the plant owners. Both the management and workers have no choice in this, if they wish to feed their families they must choose to work for the owners of the plant – usually the 1%, they must earn a wage.

Humanity needs to work together to survive, we need to cooperate. But how we choose to cooperate is limited by the choices offered to us by the 1%, we can earn money as management or labour within the production infrastructure of the 1%.

But this does not factor in the public sector, what is the function of government in this? Some argue that the government is in charge and that the public and private sector are often in conflict., in this it is often seen that the government restricts profits, and is therefore detrimental to the interests of management and labour within the private sector.

But government can be seen differently. The transport infrastructure is very important in facilitating the distribution of the products for sale. This infrastructure is necessary for 1% profits, but do they pay for the infrastructure? The 1% needs an educated workforce even if only for organisational skills, government education provides for this. In order for the 1% to profit from wars it needs government to have a defence budget to pay for national security. It needs a government to create the military to wage wars. And where does the government get money for this? Primarily through personal taxes. In other words it can be seen that one role of government is to provide the taxation that facilitates profits through infrastructure, education and defence procurement.

It could also be counter-argued that government provides socially useful functions, infrastructure and education are two. It could be argued that government are defending the interests of the community through defence.

There are also more obvious social functions of government such as social services, these offer very little to the profits of the 1% – except that an unstable society would not enable 1% profits.

A final important function of government is law and order. With the increasing privatisation of law and order there are obvious benefits to the 1%. Aside from this, the 1% cannot profit if there is social anarchy. “There is one law for the rich and one for the poor” in my view does not happen by accident. The law also provides the ability of protecting the interests of the 1%. In the UK the police were key in protecting the interests of the 1% against trade unions in the miners’ strike, and globally police were used to destroy Occupy, the first organising that specifically targeted the 1%.

Historically government has been used to monetarise an economy, this was most easily seen in colonisation. The British in Africa required a workforce to build the transport infrastructure but the people lived off a barter economy and were unwilling to work on the construction. The invading armies demanded a tax burden for their governance, and this meant Africans had to earn money to pay taxes. Taxation forced the African into wage-slavery.

Government enforces regulations. These regulations can be seen dually. Environmental protection regulations can be seen as reducing profits as can the minimum wage, whereas both can obviously be seen as socially beneficial.

In conclusion government has a dual role – the facilitation of 1%-profits through enabling profits, yet at the same time it has a social function that can benefit individuals especially the poor.

Given the provisos above the 1% are they, and their purpose is to make profits through war and wage-slavery. Whilst our socio-economic system is not 100% functioning in this way, it is primarily a 1%-system with token benefits for some individuals.

However there are many arguments which say that the social service aspect of government is a much higher proportion than I have implied, and much credence is given this through media coverage of people exploiting social services. Given the intentional confusion on all aspects of public information it is difficult to assess this. So when it comes to such assessment every individual needs to find a source they can trust.

So to return, what is the purpose of this blogpost? Given the intentional disinformation process that is happening, how do we know how to act in voting and otherwise?

Firstly it is not advisable to trust politicians because most have a vested interest to lie as they are opportunists seeking power. Secondly it is not advisable to expect our electoral system to deliver democracy in view of so much opportunism and the 1%-need for war.

I cannot come up with any further trustworthy approaches – in my view our system is so loaded against us.

In the UK there is an unwritten law in voting, vote for the party that safeguards your financial interests. There is usually a limited tacit understanding that the Tories are sound financially and Labour will help the needy more but the economy will suffer. This is a myth propounded by the media – the 1%-media – to encourage votes for the Tories. Why? The Tories definitely work for the 1% (Labour usually do – in my view Corbyn doesn’t). Does the economy suffer under Labour? Under Blair the economy did not suffer, but then Blair worked for the 1%.

If you vote out of economic self-interest your vote will be exploited. In the UK there is a tacit understanding as to which class votes for which party. And the system continues to exploit to the benefit of the 1% whoever is voted for. There is a need for a change in voting patterns. Why not vote for compassion? If you care about the world and its people vote for compassion. Demand that the platform for politicians is compassion.

Trust a politician who stands for compassion. I believe Corbyn is compassionate but maybe that is a bias. Demand that your politicians stand up for compassion, if you are certain your politician has integrity and compassion vote for them. The more people who demand compassion the more politicians have to put forward compassionate policies.